Donald Trump has banned reporters who do not use the term 'Gulf of America' from entering the White House. The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Trump has bizarrely renamed the Gulf of America. The reporter tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away. A second reporter from the agency was also barred from an event in the White House Diplomatic Room later that evening.
Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor at the Associated Press, described the move as "alarming", adding in a statement: "Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP's speech not only severely impedes the public's access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.". Before his inauguration on January 20, the president announced plans to change the Gulf of Mexico's name to the "Gulf of America", and signed an executive order as soon as he took office. Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, responded with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that North America should be renamed “América Mexicana”, or “Mexican America”. “Sounds nice, doesn't it?" she added.
This week, Google Maps began labelling the sea the "Gulf of America," saying it had a "longstanding practice" of adhering to local naming policies in the countries it operates in. In Britain, Google shows the title "Gulf of Mexico", with the "Gulf of America" in brackets and smaller text underneath. In his 'Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness' executive order, Trump also changed the name of Mount Denali in Alaska back to Mount McKinley. It reversed an Obama-era decision to use the Native Alaskan name for the peak instead of its 20th century title, named after William McKinley, a US president who was assassinated in 1901.
A statement from Google last month said: "We've received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources. For geographic features in the U.S., this is when Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is updated. When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the U.S. quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America. Also longstanding practice: When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name. Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too.".
The other leading online map provider, Apple Maps, was still using "Gulf of Mexico" in the US earlier on Tuesday, but by early evening had changed to "Gulf of America" on some browsers. The body of water has been named the Gulf of Mexico for more than 400 years. The AP has insisted that it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its reporting, while noting Trump's decision to rename it as well.
